The Seduction of Inga (1969), aka Inga 2, is Joe Sarno's sequel to his popular Inga, again staring Marie Liljedahl in the title role, and begins where Inga leaves off. This was Liljedahl's last film, as she retired upon its completion. Inga has been left by Karl in the city, living in a cheap boarding house run by a madam. She is nearly out of money, and is being pressured into turning tricks to pay her rent. Her neighbor, a young wannabe song writer and performer, gets her a job as secretary to a rich middle aged author.

Inga falls for the author, the songwriter falls for her, and the author has a thing for young girls, including his daughter, whom he had a long, incestuous affair with. Inga is naked through much of the film, and shows breasts and buns and a hint of bush. Liljedahl was an excellent actress and could have had a long career if she had chosen to do so. Inger Sundh, as the incestuous daughter, shows breasts in a sex scene, and does a fairly hot lesbian scene with Liljedahl. An unknown seduces the songwriter after he thinks Liljedahl has dumped him and two unknowns have a lesbian sex show in the madam's apartment. After Sarno finished the film and submitted it to the producers, someone cut in some harder core inserts that clearly don't match, so we have breast and bush closeups of Inga and Greta's characters. Sarno claims all of the lesbian footage was shot by him, and that Liljedahl did show headless bush in that scene.

The sound track was meant to appeal to a younger audience, and Sarno contracted two young Swedish rock musicians to compose it, Peter Himmelstrand and Björn Ulvaeus, who later joined two other musicians and formed ABBA. The original R US release and the grindhouse version with the inserts are both in the rather well done 2 DVD set from Seduction Cinema, as well as tons of special features, and another Sarno film. The original release is a very noisy and damaged 4/3, and the grindhouse version is letterboxed and in generally better shape. Sarno shot in Sweden as he felt he got the best possible crew for the least money, and he was already fluent in the language.

IMDb readers have this at 6.0, but only based on 7 votes. It is one of the better late 60's sexploitation efforts, as it had a real story, character development, and higher production values than was the norm in that genre. Sarno was very adept at lighting a scene, liked closeups, and seemed to have a fascination with the psychology of incest, making this a classic Sarno film. This is a C+ as an excellent example of 60 sexploitation, bordering on art film. It is more of interest today from an historical perspective.

Way too much of our lives (mine and
Tuna's), is filled with watching bad movies and noting how bad they
are. Because of that fact, it feels really nice, once in a while, to
break from the normal cynicism of my column and offer some praise to
people who make good movies, to wit: screenwriter Charlie
Kaufman and writer director Terry Gilliam.

The Adventures of Baron
Munchausen (1988)

I suppose Terry Gilliam must be the most underrated
writer/director in history. He's only made nine films, all of them
pretty damned good, and three of them in the all-time IMDb Top 250,
yet he's never in the discussion when people debate about the
greatest living directors.

He is also credited as a writer in all of those
films except The Fisher King. There is not a bad film on the list.
There is nothing even close. Even the disappointments are worth
one's time, and even the worst moments of the disappointments are
impossible to fast-forward through.

To me the key issue about Gilliam is not just that
he is a funny man with an astounding and unique imagination, though
he is those things, but that his body of work is a celebration of mankind.

On the surface, one might assume the opposite,
that Gilliam is cynical to the point of despair. His imaginary
worlds are all dystopic. They are chaotic and dehumanizing places
ruled by the brutal and corrupt. All his humor seems to derive from
a view that the only way for the human spirit to cope with chaos and
hopelessness is with laughter. Underneath that veneer, however,
Gilliam inevitably sees the brighter angels of our nature. His
societies may be vile, perhaps as an extension of the real societies
that we build, but his individuals can be noble, and willing to
fight against monstrous odds, even at great personal peril. When I
watch Gilliam's films, I always get a sense that we humans have
failed, but that we should not have, that we should have been much
more, and might yet be if we can suppress that portion of our DNA
that still belongs to the territorial apes we once were.

Terry Gilliam is what Jonathan Swift or Cervantes would have
been if they had lived in a time when artists created movies.

Gilliam has made great films but Baron Munchausen, to be honest, is not such a
great film. It is one of Gilliam's most tepid offerings, and one of
his most confusing and silly. Yet it is still a good film because there
is just so much to enjoy. There is Gilliam's astounding visual
invention. There is Uma Thurman's beauty, Eric Idle's comic timing,
Sara Polley's childish adorability, and a marvelously theatrical lead performance by John Neville. There is the celebration of our ability to dream, the
condemnation of irrational authority and power wielded cynically,
the recognition of the power inherent in forgiveness, and in hope. Most of all there is
the ubiquitous notion that the individual is important, that he
cannot normally win a victory over the ruthless, soulless power of
entrenched demigods, but there is great nobility and value in the
fact that he tries.

By the time Oscar nominations roll along, the academy seems to
forget about the films released in February and March. That's a shame, because
Eternal Sunshine is a terrific movie, and would make a
credible and creditable Oscar candidate.

What would you do if the woman you
love went to a
mind-erasure service and had them remove all traces of you?

Well, I know the answer in real life,
but this is the movies.

In real life, you would be sitting in
the catbird's seat. Assume your relationship has been having problems.
That's why she had her mind erased in the first place, right? Having
erased the memory of all those sour moments, she is now free to fall
in love with you again, not knowing about the bad times, not
remembering the mistakes you made, not aware of some of the ugly
things you said in the heat of an argument. You, on the other hand,
are aware of the erasure, know what went wrong, and if you are a
thoughtful person, can avoid the worst problems. You've been given a second chance.

This movie isn't about that.

That's way too logical and
predictable to come from the disordered mind of Charlie Kaufman.

He is an eccentric man, possibly
completely mad, as were many of the greatest writers in history.
Melville was nutty as a fruitcake. Dostoevsky and Gogol, likewise.
Blake? Don't even go there. The advantage of madness is that it
pushes a mind to wander where other minds would not go, to invent
outside the boundaries of reality. This is not an especially
desirable characteristic for a doctor or a judge, but it can be the
wellspring of originality for painters and writers. This is
precisely what created the old cliché about the thin line between
genius and insanity - both geniuses and madmen see what others
cannot. Both ignore objective reality and the boundaries of
convention. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is one or the other ... or
both ... it doesn't really matter.

Kaufman doesn't take the logical,
predictable path I followed above, and the very fact that he has no
grasp of reality is precisely what makes him so uniquely effective.
Reality would have screwed up this story.

When the man in this film finds out
that his woman has erased him, instead of viewing it as a fresh
opportunity to relive the good times and avoid the mistakes, he thinks that the only way to purge his malaise is to
have her erased from his mind as well. The procedure itself takes a few
hours, and this film is about what goes on in the man's unconscious
mind as his memories are being erased. Somehow, he becomes aware of
the erasure process from deep in his drug-induced coma, and he tries
to hide some of the good memories from the scientists and
technicians who are mapping his brain. He even tries to wake up, as
if in a bad dream, and tell them to stop. The technicians have their
own issues as well, and get distracted from the process, so the man
becomes free - at least temporarily - to poke around in the
memories of his romance, and its relationship to other events that made him into the man who entered that romance in the
first place.

Along the way, he comes to understand
who he is, and why things didn't work out. In the process of doing
so, he comes
to an understanding that the early promise of a new love is
inevitably doomed to face crisis and pain, but that isn't necessarily a
bad thing, depending on how the partners handle it.

That's an extremely oversimplified
summary. The script is filled with nuances, quirks, and interwoven sub-plots, and is sculpted in such a clever
way that the film even includes some of the best elements of the mystery
and thriller genres.

I confess that I usually get bored by
films that have a character wandering in and out of dreams and
memories, but I never lost interest in this film for a second. The
main deal drove forward at exactly the right pace, with just the
right cards hidden. The sub-plots, although sometimes seeming to be
irrelevant at the time they were introduced, all served a purpose in the master
design.

In a sense, it is a work of great
literature that just happens to be in a convenient "genre film"
format, ala Blade Runner. It is also remarkably entertaining.

Just see it.

Kirsten Dunst (1,
2,
3). Not much nudity, but a look at
Dunst's breasts is always appreciated.

The trailer and a little featurette action for
Raise Your Voice, the latest Hilary Duff flick:
" 'Raise Your Voice' stars Hilary Duff as Terri Fletcher, a small
town girl with the voice of a big-time singer. When a personal
tragedy interrupts her steady life, Terri defies her father's
wishes and secretly heads off to spend a summer at a Los Angeles
performing arts academy. But the school brings a whole new set of
challenges for Terri, who suddenly finds herself part of a highly
competitive program in an intimidating new city. Though initially
overwhelmed by her new surroundings, Terri rises to the occasion
with the help of some newfound friends, an encouraging teacher,
and a first love that captures her heart. "

Remember that break-in into the home of the Hilton girl? Take
a guess at the outcome. Turns out there is another Paris Hilton sex tape.
I can't believe it. How gullible do you think I am? Next you're
going to tell me there's more than one movie where Hugh Grant
plays a stammering and falsely modest twit!

This week's movies: Ladder 49 - 31% positive reviews.
"Smothered by the heart-on-sleeve melodramatics of the
storytelling, which seems intent on leaving no cliche unused and
pounding each of them home."

This week's movies: Shark Tale 20% positive reviews.
Reviewers were cruel: "By this time next year Shark Tale will be
on a sale rack at Wal-Mart for $5.99, probably as part of a
bargain double-pack with Ice Age."

The trailer for Spin: "'Spin'
tells the story of a boy who loses his parents in a plane crash,
is taken in by his uncle, who then leaves him for ten years in the
care of his Hispanic ranch hand and his wife. Once in high school,
Eddie reconnects with a girl from his past, and their growing
interracial relationship teaches the sometimes-sullen Eddie to
think of others before himself."

The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the
review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.

If there is a white asterisk, it means that
there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined
there might be something else of interest.

A blue asterisk indicates the review is written
by Tuna (or Junior or Brainscan, or somebody else besides me)

If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too
ashamed to admit it.

The movie reviews are displayed in an inline frame. Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. Go here to see the list of new reviews.

Shiloh

Words from Scoop.

.avi's from Shiloh.

.wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

NOTE: because of a unique combination of
circumstances with the Windows media player and some substantial
bandwidth theft, we will have to do all of our movie files in zip
format. Left click on the files as you normally would to view a
picture. When
you get a choice, click on "save", and put it on your hard drive in
the directory of your choice. UnZIP and play from there.

I know this is not especially convenient, but it
allows the film clips to continue. I can protect .zip files from
hot-linking in the same way I can protect still images. For some
reason, if I protect .avis and .wmvs from hot-linking, they will not
play in the Windows media player, and I can't get a satisfactory
work-around. Perhaps I will find a better solution, but for now this
new policy allows you to continue getting the movie clips you want
to see, which is much preferable to my abandoning the clips
altogether.

Normally we leave the former staple girls to
Brainscan, but since Shannon Tweed's probably the most successful of
the bunch, if not the most prolific (that would be Julie Strain),
here she is in that timeless cinema classic, Power Play. (.avi
zipped) (.wmv zipped)

Perhaps these tips will help if you have trouble
with the codecs for these movies:

Shiloh says:

FYI when I hypercam vids to make the file size smaller I use
DivX MPEG-4 Fast-Motion for the video compressor, then I use
virtualdub to compress the audio. The properties for the
vids says the video codec: DivX Decoder Filter & audio
codec: Morgan Stream Switcher which I'm not familiar with.
When I compress the audio with virtualdub I use MPEG
Layer-3. A friend of mine told me about compressing the
audio about (6) mos. ago. Like I said previously, only been
capping for a year & a half & I'm no expert. Hopefully this
info will help members with the proper codecs for my vids.

When I cap big brother's I use hypercam mostly & sdp &
asfrecorder if the set up allows me. I stopped using
camtasia cause the file sizes were always too big, could
never figure out the process, over my head lol, plus it cost
too much to buy in my opinion.

A reader says:

You mentioned that some users were
having trouble with the videos on your site. There is a tool
designed to determine what codec is needed for a video.
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ Hope this is useful to you
or your users.

Scoop says:

I made the .wmv versions of each video. The codecs for these: Windows Video V8, Windows Audio 9.
The upside of these is that you know the codecs, and they'll play in
the Windows Media Player. The downside is that they are slightly
larger, and slightly lower quality.

Striplight

Comments and vids by Striplight:

A couple more vids straight out of the top
drawer for you.

Firstly Sophie Marceau in "Beyond the
Clouds". This is where she clambers out of bed to see if Malkovich
has really buggered off. Fantastic! Her, I mean. (.wmv zipped)

Then there’s Esther Hall in “Sons & Lovers”.
Only a brief flash of the three - the full stand up frontal bit
earlier in the drama is so badly lit I can’t seem to create
anything worthwhile from it. But this is nice. (.wmv zipped)

She is a relative unknown to me, despite having 13 film credits prior to this film. She gives it all up in this one with some of the most revealing sex and nudity I've seen in a mainstream film. The film itself was like watching paint dry. Very long, boring scenes done in real time.

Found an early Julie Strain performance in a videotape
called "Teasers" (1993). Plot goes like this. I
don't mean a summary of the plot, or an overview of
the plot, I mean the plot. Would be safer to say:
screenplay of the movie goes like this:

Two college guys who look 35 go into a titty bar to
celebrate something or other. Gal strips (she is
played by Melody Johnson, a pale blonde who moves as
though this was the not the first time she'd taken off
her clothes in public). Drunk guy next to them gets
up, walks away and leaves his credit card behind.
College guys take credit card... because they wouldn't
mind if someone took a credit card of theirs and used
it for his own purposes, nope not one little bit.
They go home and call up seven strippers to come over
and do their jobs.

All seven do. Cops show up after number 7. Take boys
down to the station (which, remarkably enough, has the
very same carpet as their living room), where the
female cop proceeds to strip and the boys are let
loose, sadder but wiser or happier and stupider. I'm
not sure which.

That's it. All the plot development of My Dinner With
Andre done by mimes. Maybe less.

But nine gals take off their clothes. Seven of them
do bang-up triple B performances; and for those who
like the sight of bare naked tushies, eight of the
gals do the shakin-the-booty thang. One of the gals
is the goddess of B movies, Julie Strain, and several
others (Lisa Comshaw, Ashlie Rhey, Amy Rochelle,
Lauren Hays and Melanie Armstrong) went on to be
staples of the B movie industry. If you had never
seen a direct-to-video erotic thriller and planned
never to do so, but you wanted to see what the women
in those movies looked like, this would be the tape
for you.

And even though it is a videotape, the lighting and
close-up camera work make for fairly decent caps.

The litany of stripping goes like this:

Amy Rochelle starts out as a French maid. Triple B.
This was early Amy, when her body was perfect and
composed entirely of carbon compounds, not that
silicone shit.

Annette Burger has the longest stripping scene...
almost ten minutes in duration. And I can see why.
Terrific rumpus and a pair of robo-hooters that are
actually pretty darn attractive. Gal did two other
movies, both erotic thrillers and got nekkid in them,
too.

Melinda Armstrong, wearing a wig of short brown hair.
Melinda was the focus of the Bikini Summer movies and
has done a lot of strip and wiggle disks. Here she
strips. And she wiggles. But even though she takes
off her knickers, there's another pair of knickers
underneath them. WTF?

Excellent 'caps by DeadLamb that combine two late 70's/early 80's classic TV shows. Here is Gray (better known to many as Col. Wilma Deering from "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century") in bikini 'caps from a guest appearance on "Magnum, P.I.". The first season of "Magnum" is now available on DVD.

Señor Skin 'caps of Black going topless in scenes from an indie film that no one has ever heard of called "Levelland" (2003).

Pat Reeder www.comedy-wire.com

Pat's comments in yellow...

NUGENT SLAMS ROCKER VOTE DRIVES
Weighty Thought - Republican rocker Ted Nugent scoffed at the vote
registration drives by P. Diddy and other rockers and rappers. Nugent said
telling people to "just get out and vote" when they know nothing about the
issues is like saying, "'There's a child drowning in the river. Just do
something. Here, I'll throw him a cinder block.' Well, at least you did
something."

Makes Ted want to get out his crossbow...

If the kid is a liberal, Ted WOULD throw him a cinder block.

If they want to learn about the issues, they'll actually have to listen
to the lyrics.

PHONE CUSTOMERS TOLD TO "F--- OFF"
Reach Out And F--- Someone - Customers of the British phone company NTL got
a shock when they called the complaint line and got a recording that said,
"Hello. We don't give a f--- about you. We are never here. We just will
f--- you about, basically, and we are not going to handle any of your
complaints. Just f--- off." NTL officials apologized, blaming it on an
attack by an outside hacker.

So leave them the f--- alone.

Either that, or an extremely honest customer service representative.

Why were customers shocked? Isn't that what ALWAYS happens when they
complain?

TRUMP TV SHOW FIRING VIOLATES A.D.A.
Delusions Of Grandeur Don't Count - On "The Apprentice," Donald Trump fired
black contestant Stacie J., calling her "crazy" after her teammates accused
her of being weird and scary because she consulted a Magic 8-Ball. But
Baltimore lawyer Morris Fischer, a specialist in discrimination cases, told
the New York Post that Trump might have violated the Americans With
Disabilities Act. Fischer said he's not advocating suing, but you could
make a case that since the prize is a real job, rejecting an applicant as
"crazy" when you have no medical proof could be illegal.

Well, unless you're Donald Trump.

It could be argued that wanting to work for Donald Trump IS proof that
you're crazy.

If Trump had to follow the ADA, he'd never be able to fire any of them.

Fortunately, reality TV has nothing to do with reality.

Asked if she planned to sue, Stacie said, "Answer's unclear. Ask again
later."

REM SINGER WANTS TO SELL RING TONES FOR CARS
Stop Stipe! - REM singer Michael Stipe isn't just a musical and political
thinker, he's an inventor, too. He told Time Out magazine that he was
nearly struck by an electric car in Los Angeles because they're so silent,
you can't hear them coming. He said it gave him a brainstorm: To keep
people from being run over, electric cars will be equipped with ring tones.
Every car could play the driver's favorite music, from classical to reggae
to bluegrass. He said, "It will blow the music business wide open!"

That's true: it could cause a lot of violence against the music
business.

And think what it'll do for road rage.

Is that really a big problem in L.A.? Drivers not playing music loud
enough so you can hear them coming?